History of Caldwell and Livingston counties, Missouri, written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri; a reliable and detailed history of Caldwell and Livingston counties--their pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens; general and local statistics of great value; incidents and reminiscences, Part 74

Author: Pease, Ora Merle Hawk, 1890-
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: St. Louis, National Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1260

USA > Missouri > Livingston County > History of Caldwell and Livingston counties, Missouri, written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri; a reliable and detailed history of Caldwell and Livingston counties--their pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens; general and local statistics of great value; incidents and reminiscences > Part 74
USA > Missouri > Caldwell County > History of Caldwell and Livingston counties, Missouri, written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri; a reliable and detailed history of Caldwell and Livingston counties--their pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens; general and local statistics of great value; incidents and reminiscences > Part 74

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The effect of " the Big Neck War " was to drive every adventurous or enterprising settler on the frontier back to the well established set- tlements along or near the Missouri. There was a general alarm, and a great deal of unnecessary stampeding and abandonment of homes and property. In early days upon an alarm of Indians all who were in the least exposed fancied themselves in danger; especially, when night came on were they impressed with a sense of peril, so that they could not sleep, and the next morning they were off at once for a secure place of refuge. In the " Big Neck" War all the exposed set- tlements ran in, and the Indians ran also !

When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832, there was another scare, which again sent the advance guards of civilization back to the towns and villages, as skirmishers and pickets are driven back upon the reserve in time of war when the enemy advances in force. Day after day came reports to the settlements on the Missouri in lower Chariton, Howard and Carroll, that the Indians were coming, and not until after Black Hawk's tribe were either helpless or harmless and Black Hawk himself was a prisoner did these alarms cease. The Indians dreaded in this quarter were the Iowas and Pottawato-

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

mies, and indeed the wandering bands of Kickapoos and Shawnees were distrusted.

FIRST AMERICAN SETTLER IN THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY.

The first white American settler in the Grand river valley was Martin Parmer, who in 1817 or 1818 built a cabin on Parmer's creek, five miles east of Brunswick, and there resided alone for a few years, removing in about 1822 to Clay county. In 1834 he went to Texas and died there. He at one time (in 1826-30) was State Senator from this district. He was a rough, uncouth, illiterate man, but of strong common sense and perfect integrity, and made a very fair legislator for his day.

Parmer (the name is sometimes spelled Palmer) was an eccentric character. He called himself, and was widely known as, " the Ring Tailed Painter" (panther), and many are the incidents related of him. In a speech before the Legislature he declared that he was a " Ring Tailed Painter from Fishin' river, wild and woolly, hard to curry. When I'm mad, I fight, and when I fight I whip. I raise my children to fight. I feed 'em on painters' hearts fried in rattlesnake grease," etc. Of this odd but somewhat noted character, Gen. W. Y. Slack thus writes, in an unfinished and unpublished manuscript sketch, now in existence, and which was written in about 1850: -

His habits and manners were as rude as his cabin, and like all other early pioneers, he was a true disciple of Esau, and lived by hunting. There were, however, but three kinds of game that " Ring Tail " Parmer cared to expend ammunition upon, and these, as he expressed it, were " deers, bar and Injuns." The last named were not, in his judgment, the least worthy of his deadly aim. His war- fare with the red men was not manly and open, but on the contrary was stealthy and murderous. [ From what the compiler has learned from other sources the last sentence, regarding the style of Parmer's warfare against the Indians, is strictly correct. ]

The traveler who called at Parmer's cabin and claimed his hospi- tality was furnished with dry deerskins for his bed, and venison and wild honey for his repast. The ceiling of his cabin was lined with dried venison ; one corner of the room was filled with green hams, another was occupied with a number of deer skins sewed up tight into sacks and filled with honey-comb, and another contained a pole scaffold fitted up as a bedstead. On two hooks over the rude fire- place hung his rifle, the most esteemed article of furniture about the household. Thus fitted up in life, and with such paraphernalia started the first settler in this great valley ; and when the reader is intro- duced to Parmer's cabin and made acquainted with its arrangements and fixtures, he has been introduced to the domicile and its appoint-

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

ments of every early pioneer, that first felled the forests and plowed the virgin soil of the Great West. Parmer's cabin, on Parmer's creek, formed the nucleus of a settlement which, in the course of a dozen years, extended along the hilly or bluff lands as far northwest as Salt creek, and as far north (about eight miles) as the " great prairie " to which then even the hunters knew no limit.

OTHER EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND EXPLORATIONS.

In 1817 and 1818 the first settlers came into the Missouri bottoms, in what is now the southern portions of Chariton, Carroll and Ray counties. In the spring of 1817 the town of "Old" Chariton was laid out, at the mouth of the Chariton river, and not long thereafter there were considerable settlements in that quarter. Among those who came to Chariton county in the fall of 1818 were Maj. Daniel Ashby, Pleasant Browder, James Leeper, Thos. Shumate and Abram Sportsman.

By the year 1825 settlers' enbins were plentifully scattered along the Wakenda, in Carroll, near the mouth of Fishing river and Crooked river in Ray, and about Liberty in Clay. The town of Bluffton, in Ray, was laid out, and both Ray and Clay counties had been organized.

After the first settlement of Chariton, Carroll, Ray and Clay counties, from 1818 to 1830 - Carroll county then not having been organized and forming a part of Ray - the Grand river county, especially the country between the forks, became celebrated as a hunter's paradise, as a land abounding in meat and honey. The tim- ber sheltered plenty of game and it is said that nearly every hollow tree was a bee tree.

In the fall of the year scores of " bee hunters " came up from the river counties, bringing wagons and barrels in which to carry away the honey which was here in such great abundance. So many of them came that they made roads through the wilderness between their homes and the honey fields. These roads were called " bee trails."

The hunters camped out and remained here some days, or until they filled their barrels.

An old settler of Clay county ( Mr. Richard Neeley ) informs the writer that in early days he came up into the Grand river country with some other parties on a honey hunt. They struck camp on West Grand river, just above the forks, and the next morning the leader sighted six bee trees all within a circle a hundred yards in diameter. In one day, so much honey was obtained that all the barrels brought along wouldn't hold it, and Mr. Neeley says he filled a hugh trough

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

with the nectar, covered it with another trough inverted, and buried it in the ground, intending to return for it the next spring ; but this he never did, and the 50 gallons of good honey went to waste no doubt.

It was the honey hunters who were the means of having this county first settled. They described the county and its resources, and awakened an interest in it, and some of them became its first occu- pants. As soon as no reasonable danger was to be apprehendrd from the Indians, and the land was surveyed and opened to settle- ment, the pioneers came up into it.

FIRST ACTUAL SETTLEMENT OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

In the spring of 1831 the first settlement was made in the central portion of the Grand River Valley, in what is now Livingston county. In a beautiful elm grove, crowning the most elevated portion of a high ridge, one and a half miles west of the present site of the town of Utica, Samuel E. Todd erected his cabin and made his home. After careful examination and investigation of the subject, the writer is convinced that to Mr. Todd is to be given the distinction of being the first actual settler in the county. His written testimony to this effect, made many years ago, is convincing in itself, and Gen. Slack's manuscript, written after careful comparison of statements of many of the first settlers, fully corroborates his testimony.

When Mr. Todd made his settlement he was, like Crusoe, " mon- arch of all he surveyed." His nearest neighbors were a portion of the chief White Cloud's ( " Mahaska ") band of Iowa Indians, whose village then, temporarily, was on an elevation six miles northeast and about three-fourths of a mile west of the present depot of the Han- nibal and St. Joseph Railroad at Chillicothe. His nearest white neighbors were the settlers down in lower Carroll and Chariton.

In after days Mr. Todd frequently claimed, and the claim was not denied, that he was the first man that raised a crop of corn in the county. He procured with his rifle a sufficiency of meat for his family, but Gen. Slack writes that he was not so much of a Nimrod as were the early pioneers generally. His inclination was more to the pursuits of agriculture and manufacturing than to hunting. He erected the first grinding mills in the county -just a horse mill, at his residence, and a few years later a water mill, on the West fork of Grand river, near Utica, on the site afterward occupied by Hoy & Chadwick's mills.

Probably other settlements were made in the county in the year

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

1831, but, if so, neither the fact or any particulars can here be stated. But during the year 1832 the notorious Heatherly family came in and located two miles northeast of Chillicothe, and with them came and located another family named Yatterlee ; both families soon removed to the northward several miles. In 1836 the Heatherly family made themselves generally and unfavorably known, but secured an abiding place in the history of the State as the authors of the Heatherly War, described on subsequent pages.

It is impossible at this late day - if it ever was possible - to detail the settlements in their order and location as they were made between the year 1831 and 1835. On the night of November 12, 1833, mem- orable as the night of the great meteoric shower, or the night " when the stars fell," as some persons called it, Mr. Elisha Hereford en- camped on Medicine creek, eight miles east of Chillicothe. On the same night Reuben McCoskrie, John Austin, Abe Bland, and their families, settled on Shoal creek, in the southwestern portion of the county. Also in 1833 Levi F. Goben settled in Jackson township, and about the same time Spring Hill was founded, and half a dozen families were living in the neighborhood.

In 1834-35 a considerable immigration came in, and in 1836 there were 200 families in the county, or about 1,000 people. For the particulars of the first settlements, names of pioneers, etc., the reader is referred to the township histories and to subsequent pages of this volume.

The first settlements were all made in the timber, and chiefly along streams or at a spring. The settlers seemed to think a spring indis- pensable to an existence. As between a piece of good land without a spring, and a piece of poor land with a spring, the latter was pre- ferred. Timbered land was preferred for farming purposes - first, because the settlers were accustomed to that sort of land, and, again, because they had no plows capable of cutting and turning the stub- born, tough prairie sod. The timbered land, when cleared and grubbed, was as mellow as an ash-heap, and corn could be planted by the use of no other implement than a hoe.

It has been stated that the first settlers regarded the prairie lands as worthless, and refused to settle on them solely for that reason, but this is not true. The early pioneers knew good soil when they saw it as well as their posterity or those who came after them, but with the simple plows in vogue at that day, with their frail cast iron points and wooden mold-boards, it was impossible to subdue the stubborn sod of the prairies for some years after the settlement of the country.

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

THE INDIANS.

Prior to the white occupation of Livingston county the Indians had full possession. The first since the historic period were the Missouris, and after them the Northern Indians came in from time to time. The Iowa tribe of Indians had one or two towns here, and so did the Sacs (or Sankees ) and Foxes, and perhaps the Pottawatomies, all of whom occupied the Grand river county from time to time until the white settlers came, and, indeed, often came in and hunted and trapped for some years afterward, although their true homes and real hunting grounds were to the far north, in Iowa.

There was one Indian town on the hill, a mile southwest of Chilli- cothe. Another stood twelve miles north of Chillicothe, near Grand river (sec. 4-59-24), and was of considerable size. There was a noted Indian town on what came to be known as Indian Hill (sw. sec. 8-58-24), two miles a little east of south of Spring Hill. Another was on Medicine creek, near Collier's mill (sw. sec. 36-58-23), and ten miles east, on the 40-acre mound which stands on the west side of Locust creek, half a mile south of the railroad, was quite a large town, which existed till 1836.

Three miles northwest of Spring Hill (sw. sec. 23-59-25) was an Indian cemetery or burying ground, which seemed to be very old in 1838. The locality was well known and greatly dreaded by the pioneer boys, the majority of whom had as great a terror for Indian " spooks " as of living Indian warriors, painted and armed and on the war path. Mr. James Leeper relates that when compelled to pass the old Indian graveyard after nightfall he wasn't long about it, and whistled shrilly and loud to keep up his courage and to keep down the Indian ghosts.

Hunting parties of the Indians came into the Grand river country from the north up to about 1840 to hunt and trap. An old Sac chief named Hard Heart passed down the river with his village of 50 per- sons and camped near Compton's ferry during the winter of 1839.

ORGANIZATION.

Until November 16, 1820, the territory now embraced in Livingston 1 formed a part of Howard county ; after the date mentioned it became a part of Ray, until January 2, 1833, on the organization of Carroll, when it was attached to that county. While this county formed a part

1 Except that portion in the extreme southeast, east of the line between ranges 21 and 22, which belonged to Chariton.

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

of Ray it was included in Missouriton township until May, 1832, when it was made a part of Grand River township.

When Carroll was organized this territory became again Missouriton and Grand River townships. But by the year 1836 there was enough people in the territory to justify the creation of a new county, and it was done. On the 6th of January, 1837, the following act of Legis- lature was approved by Gov. Dunklin and became a law : -

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri as follows: 1. All that portion of territory heretofore attached to the counties of Carroll and Chariton, in the following boundaries : begin- ning at the northwest corner of Carroll county ; thence east with the northern boundary of said county to Grand river ; thence up said river to where the range line dividing ranges twenty-one and twenty-two crosses said river ; thence north with said range line to the line divid- ing townships fifty-nine and sixty ; thence west with said township line to the range line dividing ranges twenty-five and twenty-six; thence south with said range line to the beginning ; shall form a separate and distinct county, to be called and known by the name of Livingston county, in honor of Edward Livingston.

2. All rights and privileges guaranteed by law to separate and dis- tinet counties are hereby extended to the county of Livingston.

3. E. V. Warren, Samuel Williams and George W. Folger, of the county of Carroll, are hereby appointed commissioners to select the seat of justice for said county ; and said commissioners are hereby vested with all power granted such commissioners by an act, entitled " An act to provide for organizing counties hereafter established," approved December 9, 1836.

4. The commissioners appointed by this act to select the seat of justice for the county of Livingston, shall make such selection within three miles of the center of said county.

5. The courts to be holden for said county shall be holden at the house of Joseph Cox until the county court for said county shall select some other place.

6. The Governor is authorized and required to appoint and commis- sion three persons; resident in said county, as justices of the county court thereof, and one person resident in said county as sheriff [who], when so commissioned, shall have full power and authority to act as such in their respective offices, under the existing laws, until the next general election, and until their successors are elected, commissioned and qualified.

7. All that territory lying north of said county of Livingston shall be attached to said county for all civil and military purposes until otherwise provided by law.

At the same time, and included in the same act, the counties of Macon and Linn were organized.

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

As originally organized the eastern boundary of Livingston above township 56 extended three miles eastward of where it now does, tak- ing off three miles of what is now the western part of Linn county ; but in a few weeks the boundaries were reduced to their present limits.

The Hon. Edward Livingston, for whom the county was named, was the eleventh Secretary of State of the United States, serving in Gen. Jackson's Cabinet two years, or from May, 1831, to May, 1833.

CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY FROM ITS ORGANIZATION TO 1840.

First County Courts-Early Elections, Etc., - First Circuit Courts -- During the Mormon War - The First Court-House - Second Court-House -First Bridges, Fer- ries, Stores, Physicians, etc .- Early Marriages - Improving the Wilderness - The Famous "Heatherly War."

FIRST COUNTY COURTS.

The first term of the county court was held April 6, 1837, at the house of Joseph Cox, in what was then Medicine Creek township, or about four miles due north of the present site of Chillicothe, (center of section 12-58-24). Mr. Cox's residence had been designated as the temporary seat of justice of the county. There were present the three county judges, Wm. Martin, Joseph Cox and Reuben McCosk- rie ; the clerk, Thos. R. Bryan, and the sheriff, Wm. O. Jennings, all of whom were commissioned by Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs, Feb- ruary 4, previously.

The first business done, after choosing Judge Martin president of the court, was to divide the county into municipal townships. This was done as to the county by laying off four townships - Shoal Creek, Indian Creek, Medicine Creek and Grand River - whose designated boundaries were as follows :-

Shoal Creek - Beginning at the southwest corner of the county, on the range line between 25 and 26, where the same crosses the line between Congressional townships 55 and 56; thence east twelve miles, or to the line between ranges 23 and 24; then north to Grand river, then up Grand river to the line between ranges 25 and 26, or the western boundary of the county, then south to the beginning. In other words Shoal Creek township comprised the southwestern part of the county, embracing the territory in the present townships of Monroe, Mound, Greene and Utica.

Indian Creek - Beginning at the northwest corner of the county proper, then south along the county line to the middle of the channel of Grand river, then down the river to the forks, then up the east fork of Grand river to the north line of the county proper - or the line between Congressional townships 59 and 60, then west to the be- ginning. In other words Indian Creek township included the north-

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY,

western portion of the county, comprising the territory between the forks of Grand river in what is now Sampsel and Jackson townships.

Medicine Creek - Beginning at the northeast corner of the county, then south with the county line to Grand River, then np Grand River to the East fork, then up the East fork to the northern boundary of the county proper, then east to the beginning. Medicine Creek town- ship, therefore, comprised the entire northwestern part of the county, including all the territory now in Chillicothe, Rich Hill, Cream Ridge, Medicine and Wheeling townships.

Grand River- Beginning on Grand river where the line between ranges 23 and 24 crosses said river (at the northeast corner of what was then Shoal Creek township), then down the river to the southeast corner of the county (where the line between townships 55 and 56 crosses the river ), then west with the south boundary of the county to the line between ranges 23 and 24, then north to the beginning. Grand river embraced the territory in the southeastern part of the county, south of Grand river, including all of the present townships of Fairview and the greater portion of the present Grand river.

All of the territory north of the county proper, which had been at- tached to Livingston (forming now the counties of Grundy and Mer- cer ), was divided into two townships. All of the territory east of the East fork of Grand river, extending to the Iowa line, was called Muddy Creek township, and all west of the East fork was called Sugar Creek.

It will be seen that the townships were all named from the streams. Special elections to choose two justices of the peace and one con- stable in each township were ordered held May 27, as follows :-

In Indian Creek, at Jesse Nave's; judges of election, James Leeper, Andrew Ligett and Benjamin Hartgrave. In Shoal Creek, at John S. Tomblin's ; judges, John Austin, Samuel E. Todd and Stephen W. Reynolds ; two additional justices of the peace were- elected in this township in July. Medicine Creek, at Wm. E. Pearl's ; judges, Wm. Linville, Samuel Parks, James Cook. Grand River, at Benjamin A. Fewel's ; judges, John Hall, John Stucky and Benj. A. Fewel. Sugar Creek, at George Perry's ; judges, Wm. P. Thomp- son, Geo. Bunch and Philip Wild. Muddy Creek, at Danicl Duval's ; judges, John Thrailkill, Daniel Duval and Wm. S. "Cohorn" (probably Cochrane ).1

1 In November following an election was held at Utica- John Austin, Spencer Gregory and Howard Maupin, judges, to choose two additional justices for Shoal Creek, and the same day an election was held at Nave's in Indian Creek, to select two more for that township - Elisha Bucher, Wm. Venable and Alex. Dockery, judges.

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

It can not now be determined who the justices were that were chosen at this election, as they were commissioned by the Governor, but the following were the constables in four of the townships :-

In Medicine Creek, John Cox; Indian Creek, Chas. Blakeley ; Shoal Creek, James Austin ; Sugar Creek, John Scott.

At the first session of the county court the only other business transacted, in addition to that referred to, was the location of the tem- porary seat of justice of the county at the " dwelling house of Joseph Cox," and the appointment of Saml. B. Campbell as assessor (or " cesser," as Clerk Bryan spelled and pronounced it) for the year 1837. From his report, afterwards filed, it seems that it required Mr. Campbell twenty-five days to assess the entire county. Wm. E. Pearls was appointed deputy county clerk.

At the May term, 1837, the second session of the county court, Wmn. Linville was appointed the first county treasurer, but in a few weeks he resigned and in June Samuel Parks was appointed. Ten blank " grocery " licenses were ordered issued and delivered to the sheriff, to be by him granted to applicants at the rate of $10 per license. The sheriff, Wm. O. Jennings, was appointed county col- lector.

Rates of ferriage over Grand river, were fixed as follows : For a man and horse, 121/2 cents; single horse or man, 61/4 cents ; one horse wagon, 183/4 cents ; two-horse wagon 25 cents; four-horse wagon, 371/2 cents; six-horse wagon, 75 cents ; cattle, 4 cents per head ; hogs and sheep, 1 cent each. The license fee was fixed at $2 each for State and county.

In August the sixteenth section, reserved for school purposes, in township 58, range 24, was ordered sold ; and at the same session steps were taken for the location of the county seat at Chillicothe.

The first county roads were opened in September 1837. Brannock Wilkinson, James Leeper and S. B. Campbell were the commis- sioners of a road from Chillicothe to Millport, near Gallatin, in Daviess county. This was the first road. The second ran from Utica, via Chillicothe, to Nathan H. Gregory's residence on Medieine creek, where now is thrown the iron bridge -on the road between Chilli- cothe and Linneus. The commissioners of this road were Wm. Mann, Wm. E. Pearl and Solomon Cox. Of course these were not the first roads of any sort in the county, for highways had been established when it was a part of Carroll. Then there were numerous private roads, called trails or " traces."

699

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.

The first insane man in the county was John D. Martin, son of Judge Wm. Martin, who lived in the forks of Grand river, and was married and had a wife and two children. He was about 37 years of age when he became insane, and his insanity was due to epilepsy, to which he had been subject for ten years. In October, 1837, the unfortunate man was declared insane by a jury composed of John Cox, John Hartgrave, Lewis Winfrey, Alex. Ware, Wm. Mann, Wm. F. Ewell, James Nave, Nathan H. Gregory, Wm. Linville, Wm. Mabry and Henry Frith. His father built a house for him near his ( the father's) own, and here he was removed and cared for until his death a few years later. There was no asylum in Missouri at that day.

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Author: Pease, Ora Merle Hawk, 1890- Publication date: 1886 Publisher: St. Louis, National Historical Company Number of Pages: 1260

Author: Pease, Ora Merle Hawk, 1890-
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: St. Louis, National Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1260